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Group Starts Anti-Union Campaign

A new business-backed group is mounting a highly visible attack against organized labor, just as unions are trying to pick themselves up after suffering a schism and years of decline.

The group, the Center for Union Facts, ran full-page advertisements in national newspapers yesterday and started a Web site, UnionFacts.com, asserting that many unions are corrupt and have hurt airlines, steel makers and automakers.

"Obviously I'm putting out information that's not very flattering," said Richard Berman, a longtime lobbyist for the restaurant and beverage industry who is executive director of the Center for Union Facts. "The average person today, including the average union member, doesn't have any idea how unions operate and what the realities are. Everybody knows what unions are good at, but not what they're bad at."

The Center for Union Facts shot onto the public stage yesterday by running full-page ads in The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal. The ads, which cost a total of $240,000, say "The New Union Label," and then show a sign with the word "Closed" in capital letters hanging from a plant gate. Then it adds, "Brought to you by the union 'leaders' who helped bankrupt steel, auto and airline companies."

Mr. Berman said various companies and a foundation had contributed to his nonprofit group, but he refused to identify them. He said he hoped to spend more than $5 million a year on the campaign.

A spokeswoman for the A.F.L.-C.I.O., Lane Windham, said: "It's clear that corporations are fighting back against workers' efforts to roll back corporate power. It's no accident that corporations are doing this against us when unions are trying to make sure that employers pay their fair share on heath care and when we're taking on giant corporations like Wal-Mart."

Mr. Berman runs a public affairs firm in Washington and helped to create the American Beverage Institute and the Employment Policies Institute, which has helped the restaurant industry fight increases in the minimum wage.

He has faced criticism in recent years for arguing on behalf of his clients that drinking a lot of soda does not contribute to diabetes and that Americans have been "force-fed a steady diet of obesity myths by the 'food police,' trial lawyers, and even our own government." Mr. Berman was also criticized for fighting a push by Mothers Against Drunk Driving to tighten rules on alcohol limits for drivers.

"We do take edgy positions and they're all very legitimate," Mr. Berman said yesterday.

Ms. Windham of the A.F.L.-C.I.O. said Mr. Berman's attack on unions was another of his campaigns against those who clash with his corporate clients.

The attack comes as organized labor is facing divisions that have caused five unions to quit the A.F.L.-C.I.O. over the past year.

Unions have also struggled with declining membership, as the percentage of American workers in unions has sunk to 12.5 percent of the work force, down from 35 percent in the 1950's.

A.F.L.-C.I.O. officials said the president of a state chamber of commerce told them that at a conference in Florida on Jan. 26, the state chambers had pledged several million dollars to back Mr. Berman's effort. But Mr. Berman said that when he spoke at the conference, he neither asked for nor received contributions. Rather, he said, he asked chamber officials to recommend that businesses in their states donate to his efforts.

Randel Johnson, vice president for labor, immigration and employee benefits at the United States Chamber of Commerce, said that as far as he knew neither the United States Chamber nor any state chambers had contributed to the Center for Union Facts.

Mr. Johnson said he had served as an adviser to the center. The center was founded as several unions had grown more aggressive about unionizing workers, often pressuring employers not to fight organizing drives. In addition, many unions are pressing companies to agree to recognize them, not through representation elections, but through a process known as card check, in which companies grant recognition as soon as a majority of workers sign cards saying they want a union.

"In card check campaigns, unions tend to control the information that the workers hear," Mr. Johnson said. "We think the Center on Union Facts is useful for workers to have access to more information on unions."

Mr. Berman said his center hoped to help enact a Republican-backed bill that would prohibit unions from organizing workers through card checks.

For a dozen different unions, the center's Web site details the compensation of leaders, the amount of each union's political contributions and how often members have sued the union for not representing them properly.

"Union leaders have abused the trust of their members," the center says on its Web site. "They've misspent member dues and harmed the very same people they promise to protect."

Anna Burger, president of the Change to Win Federation, a group of unions that quit the A.F.L.-C.I.O., said, "These anti-union activists can name themselves whatever they like, but the fact is that unions help working families secure the American Dream and that's good for our country."